BHAJAHARI MANDAL Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts of this case make a most unpleasant impression and had it not been for a very substantial question of law which is obviously implied, we would not have entertained an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court at all. There is however a point of a fundamental character which appears to us to require further consideration.

(2.) The facts are as follows : There was a case under Section 304 read with Section 324, Penal Code, pending before the Sessions Judge of Burdwan in which two persons, named Istipada Ghosh and Gopiraman Ghosh, were among the accused. Their interests were being looked after by a person called Bhajaharl Mandal, who is the petitioner before us. The prosecution case is that Bhajahari did not confine his activities to supervising the progress of the case in an open and normal way, but also formed the idea of corrupting the jurors and winning over a majority of them by payment of illegal gratification. He was said to have approached one of the jurors, named Baidyanath Mukherjee, on the second day of the trial which had commenced on 2-9-52 & also approached two other jurors, one Dharanidhar Misra who was the foreman & another, named Gangadhar Dawn, independently. Baidyanath who appears to have been approached first is said to have communicated to one Sri Durgapada Choudhuri, the local Public Prosecutor, the attentions he had been receiving from the petitioner and was advised that if he could get the petitioner apprehended in the act of offering a bribe, he would be doing a service to the cause of justice. Baidyanath is said to have contacted the Police thereafter and completed arrangements for laying a trap. So far as the petitioner is concerned, Baidyanath pretended to be willing to consider his proposal and asked him to come with money on 6-9-3952, before the hour when the Court would commence its sittings for the day. The place of meeting fixed was the house of one Dibakar Banerji, a lawyer's clerk, where Baidyanath was temporarily residing. It was alleged that in accordance with that arrangement, the petitioner did go to the house of Dibakar on 6-9-1952, and just as he was handing cover to Baidyanath four ten rupee notes, a Sub-Inspector of Police, who had been hiding in the neighbourhood, appeared on the scene and placed the petitioner under arrest. That in short is the prosecution story.

(3.) The defence was that the petitioner was not guilty and further that instead of his having approached the jurors with offers of bribe, he himself had been pestered by members of the jury with requests for gratification. The four tenrupee notes, it was said, belonged to Baidyanath himself and they had been foisted upon him in pursuance of a plan to wreak vengeance on him,, because of his refusal to entertain the proposal of the jurors.